Obscure but simple way for checking the status of your Czech Visa application using selenium and telegram

This bot/scraper was created for two purposes:

• Automation of a repetitive mundane task

• Education

I have decided to share the code for same reasons. Also fun.

Consequently, there is a limit in the constructor so that it raises a ValueError when it tries to schedule the bot at more than two times per day.

I suspect that even that number might be an overkill.

Unix / macOS:

python3 -m Veezum

Windows:

py -m Veezum

• Step 1: Setting up the Telegram bot

  • Download and install Telegram Messenger on your smartphone

  • Message @BotFather, and make a new bot using:

    /newbot
    

  • Make note of the token for the HTTP API

  • You can read more about bots and Telegram API here

• Step 2: Install Veezum

  • Download and then install the latest release using:

      pip install Veezum-<Version Number>.tar.gz
    

  • Build your own using python -m build

• Step 3: Set up the Environment Variables

  • Veezum scraper gets all the attributes required passed through with the Environment Variables

    • veezum_ids - List of IDs provided by the Embassy, in format:

        ABCD123456879,ABCD123456789
      

    • veezum_times - List of times for the bot to execute at, in format:

        08:00,16:00
      

    • veezum_token - Telegram HTTP API Token

• Step 4: Profit?

  • Start the bot and pray

schedule
selenium
requests
webdriver_manager

optional:
pytest

• Improve Exception / Error Handling

• Fix occasional socket issue

• Fix unnecessary waits

• Improve and simplify testing

  • Expand test cases

  • Refactor code for repetition